PLAYING Premier League football for Boro is Lukas Jutkiewicz's immediate goal.

The 22-year-old is hugely excited about the prospect of firing his new club into the top flight and sees his move from Coventry as a “huge opportunity”.

Jutkiewicz finally completed his move to Boro yesterday, penning a four and a half year contract.

He’s costing his new club in the region of £1.5m, with the fee potentially rising to £2.3m.

“It’s a huge opportunity for me,” Jutkiewicz declared at his public unveiling.

“Middlesbrough’s a massive club, in their recent history they’ve been in the Premier League and that’s where I want to end up myself.”

The Southampton-born striker won’t play against his former club at the weekend and is set to make his first Boro start against Sunderland in the eagerly-awaited FA Cup fourth round tie at the Stadium of Light on January 29.

But it’s the league where he could well make his biggest impact.

Goals have proved scarce for Tony Mowbray’s promotion chasers with just eight coming in the last nine Championship fixtures.

Scott McDonald has scored just three in the last 10 games while Emnes has scored just one in his last 10.

Jutkiewicz, who’s managed nine so far this season in a struggling Coventry side including one against his new club back in August, will hopefully help kick-start a stuttering attack.

That said, he’s been impressed by what he’s seen of Boro this season and believes he’s linking up with a quality squad of players.

“I haven’t been surprised by how well Middlesbrough have done,” he said. “They’ve got good players here and the league’s really tight.

“A lot of teams will feel they will have a shout in going up.

“I’m not surprised Boro are up there because we’ve got some high quality players.

“When we played against Middlesbrough, Coventry were lucky to come away with a point against them.

"They are a good side, they dominated the game, dominated possession and the centre-backs - Matthew Bates and Rhys Williams - did really well.

“It’s difficult for me to say what we can achieve but we want to get as high as we possibly can, ultimately the first goal will be to get into the Premier League and then you have to re-assess your goals.

“The main thing for me is to stay fit, stay healthy, play as many games as possible and score as many goals as I can and ultimately that will take you in the right direction.

“I don’t know how far that will be but I will keep working to get as high as I can. I want to get to the Premier League as quickly as possible.”

Regarding the length of his contract, Jutkiewicz added: “It’s a massive amount of faith but at the same time I want to be here long term as well.

“I’ve been told about their vision of the club moving forward and I want to be a part of that for as long a time as possible.”

Mowbray, for his part, is delighted to finally get a player he first tried to sign in August.

In fact, Jutkiewicz spent the final 24 hours of the summer transfer window at Rockliffe Park as the clubs tried and failed to thrash out a deal.

“I think he’s a potent threat and defences up and down the country in the Championship won’t be looking forward to Middlesbrough coming knowing that Lukas will be somewhere in the front line,” said the Boro boss.

“We need to keep him fit, keep him scoring goals, keep him hungry and hopefully we can all be successful together. He’s one of the first cogs in trying to re-structure/re-build,” added Mowbray.

“We’ve been here a year and a bit now and while we’ve lost a lot of players, a lot of players have gone out, the players that have come in have not been major signings.

"This is the first time we have spent what you would call ‘serious money’ and it’s the first part of a jigsaw that will give us a team that has the versatility to play lots of different ways.”